Thursday, January 31, 2008

Music in Brisbane owes an immeasurable debt to the radio station
4ZZZ, its hard to imagine how things would of developed without
their input. ZZZ was the first Fm community station in Australia
transmitting in stereo, first broadcasting in 1975.
There was nothing like it, Brisbane's airways were filled with
dreadful easy listening formula AM stations, who ignored anything
happening locally. At the same time a host of bands sprung up in
the suburbs of Brisbane, you know like the Saints and the
Gobetweens and they found the kind of support that you couldn't
find in many other capital cities at the time.
I discovered punk around 1978 through a friend who's sister had
came back from overseas with a copy of the Pistols "Pretty Vacant"
and after that this radio station that was playing music the like of
I had never heard. 4ZZZ changed my life at this point,
10 years or so later I became heavily involved in the local
Latin American community here, after listening to the
Latin American Show on Sunday's, which lead to announcing on
that show for quite a while with some great Guatemalan friends.
Even these days with across the nation JJJ, ZZZ is the only
station for me. Anyways about the record, released in September
1986, this music is mostly mid 80's brissy bands recorded in a
few different places. The Mop and the Dropouts track,
Brisbane Blacks was recorded in 82 (I have the single that a
cousin of Mops gave me), its one of my favorite Brisbane songs.
The Wonderous Fair track is another standout, this band I believe
were the great Tangled Shoelaces (more to come from them later)
There all great songs and the wonderful "Joh must go" is worth the
price of the download alone, not to mention the Fiesta Tropical track.
I saw those guys play many times at the (Maleny/Woodford)
Folk Festival, which is another institution round here that I must post
about. I have a few Australian compilation albums that I'll post in
the future, but I wanted to start with 4ZZZ and Brisbane.
Enough rambling from me.
Ripped from my vinyl copy.

I'm very excited to find this on the internet. I'm sure we had a copy of the LP in every bedroom of most of the share houses I lived in over the late 80s, but somehow they've all disappeared - and I don't even have a turntable anymore.

I'm absolutely delighted to find this blog and look forward to digging up old memories and new discoveries.

Cheers from someone who used to do a graveyard shift on zZz twenty years ago.

Hi Duncan, happy you found the blog, a friend left all his records with me years ago so I still have 2 copies. I'm sure you'll find a heap of interesting stuff here and please leave any recollections you have from the time, I'm sure you have a few.I also have the legendary cassette Queensland in Quarantine posted in June and loads of Brisbane stuff.ciao bob

I've listened to this a few times now - and am amazed at how familiar it all is given I can't have heard most of the tracks since I left Aus in 1992.

I grew up in rural Queensland before going to UQ. At the time, FM104 was a mind blowing revelation of what radio could be. Then the second share house I moved into was a TripleZed house. I had to accept that I wasn't allowed to move the radio dial in the loungeroom. It may have been months before I switched stations in my bedroom, but I stuck with the Zeds for years after that.

I first went to the studios late one night in 1987 when a visitor to the house offered to take a couple of us out there because he was a regular volunteer. It was tired and scuzzy, with graffiti all over the walls but with two working studios and more records than I'd seen in my life.

It was only later I discovered that the nikko art of a woman and a dismembered head was actually a copy of Aubrey Beardsley's Salome.

Hi Duncan,Its a Sunday morning here in Brisbane as I read this and as a mostly do I'm listening to the Jazz show which is on every Sunday morning, I returned to ZZZ after a few years listening to JJJ but its youth format and ignoring of some fine Australian artists that sent me back to ZZZ,if you haven't heard ZZZ for 20 years its really evolved into a fantastic community grassroots activist lefty radio station, which is a credit to everyonewho's been involved over the years.Pity they haven't got a live internet feed going so the world could listenciao bob

Bob, thanks for the blog! My copy went away years ago and all I had left was a rough mix tape of Who Needs Esperanto without even the subliminal synth on the track. The compilation was a terribly exciting project for all of us, and a tribute to the wonderful madness that was and hopefully remains 4zzz!

Your welcome sean, 4ZzZ is surly as insane as ever, you sound like you've moved away from Brisbane and are unsure of whats happening here.Any memories and contributions you can add to this blog will be gratefully received and will only add to it.

Hope this blog is still active. Does anyone remember a song played in zzz late 70s early 80s. Lyrics started with "ever since the accident" then went on "skin skin skin skin how do you expect to keep it all in"

That Striped Sunlight Sound.

Coming to you from Brisbanethe home of the striped sunlightsound, this is a my little placein cyberspace to share themusic of Australiawhich may have passed you by.Mostly rare and out of printalbums from artists that nevermade it into the mainstreamand my recollections concerningthem. If you like somethingplease leave a message in thecomments, if you don't,maybe you'd rather not seeyour music here, or maybe myrecollections are wrong,please leave a message too.If you find any links no longer workplease let me know and I'll fix itI'm on myspace you can find me at myspace.com/stripedsunlightsoundand if you preferfacebook.com/people/Bob